


Slice of Strife

by scapeartist



Series: 15-Minute Masterpieces [2]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-11
Updated: 2016-04-11
Packaged: 2018-06-01 18:17:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6530869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scapeartist/pseuds/scapeartist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The prompt for this was "Captain Hook & Pizza." This takes place during season 2 after Emma leaves Captain Hook in a storage closet in NYC when he attempted to kill Gold.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slice of Strife

**Author's Note:**

> Each one-shot in this series is part of a writing prompt exercise. I was having some trouble getting into the writing groove again and asked for a word and a character, and from there I would spend at least 15 minutes writing, I would not heavily edit, nor would I use a beta. This was purely me needing to get my brain moving. The "Masterpiece" part is tongue-in-cheek (even if most of these are not bad at all).

He’s not sure how long he’s knocked out, but when Hook awakens, his head is throbbing and he cannot see. The floor beneath him is smooth underneath the thin layer of grit, and he’s sure he’s never smelled anything like what’s assailing his nostrils right now. It’s overpowering, burns, and leaves an oily feeling in the back of his throat. He coughs trying to clear it, but all that does is send a shooting pain through his skull.

Groaning, Hook pulls himself upright until he’s sitting. His hand immediately goes to the back of his head where he feels a considerable lump where the Swan woman must have hit him with something heavy. He would have been far more upset with her had she done it before he plunged his poisoned hook into the Crocodile’s chest, but she at least gave him the gift of hesitation so he could get the job done.

Hook’s mending ribs are still sore, making it hard to get up, and he’s only gotten to his knees when the door opens, the light from the other side of it blinding him. He looks away, raising his hand to his eyes to filter some of it out as he tries to make out who stands before him.

“Well, well, well. Captain Hook, I presume?” the decidedly feminine voice greets him.

“Presume you may, lass,” he says with a small wave of his namesake. “I seem to be at a disadvantage. Who might _you_ be, and, more importantly, how do you know who _I_ am?”

“How I know about you is on a need to know basis, and you don’t need to. Who I am is your ride.”

He raises an eyebrow. “I’ve got one of those, love. Thanks all the same.”

Hook finishes getting to his feet slowly, swallowing a grunt of discomfort he doesn’t want this enigmatic young woman to know he’s feeling. His eyes finally adjust to the light, and before him is a petite young woman with dark skin and darker hair. And a pistol pointed right at him.

“See, that’s where you’re wrong,” she says and Hook’s mouth presses into a hard line, anger welling up. “Your ship is gone and if you want to get it back, you’ll have to come with me. My orders are not to let you out of my sight. And don’t try to be clever. I can just as easily keep sight of you if you’re dead. Not like anyone is going to come looking for you.”

That is true. Hook had run out of friends long ago, and his business relationship with Cora and Regina certainly ended on a sour note. Maybe letting this woman end his over-long life wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to him now that he finally managed to kill that demon.

Still, he’d much rather die on the open seas than in this cramped and noisy land. That is, once he gets his ship back.

He raises his arms in acquiescence, glancing at his hook. He wonders how much of the dreamshade is still on it and if he can get close enough to use it on her before she takes a shot at him.

He doesn’t get to find out.

The woman tosses him a rag from a shelf in what he can now see is a utility closet, and orders him to remove the hook from its brace. He does, wrapping it carefully in the rag and she motions for him to leave it on the shelf then step back. Her eyes never leave him as she takes his hook and drops it into a bag slung over her shoulder.

Now he’s minus two of his favorite assets: his ship and his hook. Here’s hoping she finds me devilishly handsome or I’m out a third. She’s left him with little choice but to go along with her, so he does, right out into the alley. There’s a vessel bigger than the one that hit him waiting there with what looks like an enclosed wagon hitched to it. Hook curses the fact that he cannot operate her vessel himself or he would take it from her and be gone from this place. The map is still in his coat, and he would manage. He always does.

“Get in,” she says pointing with the pistol at the back of the wagon, its door now open. It’s no bigger than the galley on the _Jolly Roger_ , windowless, and there’s a chair placed in the middle of it with a pile of rope nearby on one of several boxes piled about. His heart pounds a little faster with an old panic from his childhood creeping up from his gut. He takes a deep breath and forces a smile.

“I would love to, darling, but it’s been a long day for me and nature calls.” He winks at her hoping to disarm her one way or another.

She looks at him blandly. “I won’t look.”

“Somehow I doubt that.”

“Listen, Captain, this is New York City. People pee in alleys all the time. I don’t care. Just do it and get in. We’ve got a long drive ahead and traffic is going to be a bitch on the GW Bridge. Quit stalling and hurry up.”

Hook scans the area for something he can use as a weapon, but there is nothing close enough to where he is relieving himself against a brick wall. Once he’s finished and buttoned back up, he turns to find his “ride” holding the pistol steady as ever right at his chest.

She nods toward the trailer again and he trudges over and sits in the chair.

“Now, I’m going to tie you up so you don’t decide to take a header out the back while I’m driving. Don’t try anything funny or I’ll be forced to knock you out, and I should think twice in one day is once too many.”

“Aye.”

The woman sets her pistol out of his reach and picks up the rope looping it around him and cinching his arms tight to his torso. As she knots it all together behind the chair, his stomach growls loudly enough for both of them to hear it.  

“Really?” the woman asks, annoyed.

The last thing he ate was several hours ago right before disembarking from the _Jolly Roger_ and making his way to the address he’d found in the Crocodile’s shop. Even that meal hadn’t been much or memorable.

Hook does his best to shrug, but the ropes have him far more immobile than he likes.

“Told you, love, long day. Maybe you could untie me and we can have a nice dinner together on our way out of town. What do you say?”

“I’d say ‘not a chance.’”

“You’d really starve a man, lass? Bad form. I’ve done nothing but cooperate with you. The least you can do is give me something to eat if I’m to be locked up in here for several more hours.”

She comes around to face him, her arms crossed over her chest and gives him a cold glare.

“Please?” he asks on the tail of another loud rumble.

She rolls her eyes and heaves a sigh. “Fine. I picked up some pizza for the road. I’ll give you a slice before we leave.”

The woman exits the trailer and he hears her walking away. He looks down the alley hoping to see someone he can call out to, but no one is around. At most he thinks he spots a rat scurrying among some trash outside a nearby building. He hears a door shut and feels the vibration throughout his mobile prison. Within a moment she’s back, holding something shaped like a triangle.

“It’s pepperoni.”

“I’ve no idea what that is, but at this point, I don’t really care. How about you loosen this up so I can eat it?” he asks with a slight tilt to his head and a less forced, more convincing smile this time.

The look of irritation on her face tells him she’s not buying it.  

“Good try, Captain. You are either going to have to suffer the indignity of me feeding it to you or you can go without. Your choice,” she says and holds the pizza close to his mouth.

The smell of bread and cheese and spiced meat wafts toward him, making his mouth water and his stomach growl again. He opens his mouth and tears a large chunk from the slice.

Bread, cheese, tomato. and jerky of one sort or another are nothing new to him, but this particular combination of them is a revelation if only in its compact arrangement. She holds the slice near his face while he chews and he can barely make out what she’s saying. Something about the best pie in the borough, although he neither cares what she means or whether it was the best in all the realms.

It’s sustenance. Something to keep him sound and alert so that he may survive long enough take back his ship and find a way out of this realm for good. Maybe start a new life for himself.

When he finishes the pizza, she puts a gag in his mouth and shuts the door leaving him in the darkness again.

 


End file.
